Hi guys.
When we have any kind of trouble, we hit the logs right away, and when
we see the stacks, what i want to do is to copy & paste the error, and
wait for the "search engine" to do its job, since at this point i
consider myself a user, so, i try to think like one, and most of the
time what i want, is not to ask for a problem, but to see if someone
already has it.
Today i think there are enough data on launchpad to solve, or al least,
give a very accurate hint about 90% of the problem a user may face
(nova, swift, glance, maybe keystone) when they are stuck, but some
times the search are not accurate enough for a search regarding an issue
i know its there. so ... maybe i ended up using google search to look
into lauchpad.
So ... first, launchpad works pretty well as a Q&A site for openstack
projects, but at least, i feel theres no a good way to show all the
experience is stored there to a "fresh" user, so a more than good search
engine i think is a must, mainly because having lack of resources for
showing an answer that is already solved to a user, lead to the user to,
90% of the time, duplicate a question, and so .. a lot of admin work (
maybe deleting those, or teling the user it was already answered on THIS
link), or the feeling of the Q&A system to be forsaken because of the
amount of questions "unsolved".
A forum is more than ok also, because it gives the feeling of community
and unity where the user feels confortable, but mixing that with a Q&A
system, its a little difficult.
Making posts promoted to FAQS or post becoming GUIDES and going into the
FAQS, and the search engine suggesting something like "Ok, if you didnt
find your answer, maybe you are having troubles because of an
implementation or a setup problem, why dont you go to the IMPLEMENTATION
AND MOST IMPORTANT GUIDES to see if you can improve that and fix your
real problem ??" is a nice to have, make the user confortable that they
can find what they need, whitout asking for it ... in wich case, they
actually can.
As a last note, from mercadolibre since we have a lot already tested,
and working into production ( nova clusters, nova volumes, keystone,
swift, glance ) we can really share our experience in the form of "THE
DEFINITVE GUIDE TO ..." or something that, maybe doesnt actually fix a
certain user problem, but helps them understand how things gets
configured, and actually how they work 2gether, we can really help on
this, but i think this guides need to be put in a place where the user
actually knows they exists, and no like just one post on the forum, or a
"question" on launchpad.
The official documentation is a great starting point, its has been
greatly improved and we've always used it every time we tried a new
openstack part of the solution, so .. nicely done there Anne.
hope this gives a little user perspective.
---
Alejandro
mercadolibre.com
On 11/30/2011 06:39 AM, Leandro Reox wrote:
I think that the main problem is that we have many places to search
for information, but a few people giving helpful answers. A lot of
newcomers join the forum but particular setups problems sometimes
leads to packaging problems, bugs and we as moderators have to
redirect the user to re-post his problem on launchpad, starting over.
I think that we have to split packaging and developing questions vs
implementations doubts, concept misunderstanding, etc. The main reason
of people dropping Openstack on pre-production or testing environments
its cause they aren't even mid experienced python developers, and they
cant find a solution in a matter of time that they "experience with
the product" leaves them a "good taste" to invest more time trying to
implement it later. I read a lot of "that's and end-user question,
etc" don't you guys forget that actually the "end-users" are Companies
sysadmins maybe trying to deliver an real IaaS based on an Opensource
product like Openstack. We have a huge Openstack implementation using
almost every core product, and our environment is growing everyday
faster than we expected, but when we approach to implement a new
service, or integrate for example Keystone with Swift or Nova, we
fought for days, fixing a lot of code and ended-up on a packaging
problem, cloning the Cloudbuilders repo were the code was already
fixed. That sensation to "cross up" docs, and blogs, and examples, and
launchap question to get just to a test env, ends on companies leaving
Openstack as a "possible solution". We're pretty comfortable at python
so we love to face issues like this, but imagine a sysadmin reading
the docs, following line but line ending up with a non-working
environment asking himself why he did wrong, and maybe a magic "oh you
have to chmod all this folder" was missing on the docs.
docs.openstack.org <http://docs.openstack.org> must be the bible for
users that want to try openstack out, the forums and the IRC to help
"final users out", and launchpad for issuing bugs, we need to work on
getting an updated documentation, getting a "my instances get stucked
on scheduling" or "i cannot ssh into instances" should not exist with
a clean and clear doc. We see a lot of people stuck in a single node
installation, or on his "devstack setup" thinking about going back
with they 3 vmware esxis nodes to create they VMs, and they never
experience the real benefits of running a true IaaS all the way.
Leaving the people "googling or blogging up" a few minutes after their
setup is not good at all for the platform, we try to write up very
detailed installation posts on the forums that are very usefull for
the users, with tips and common issues that we faced installing the
product.
We're helping out everyday on the IRC and the forums to reduce the
traffic o users hitting common issues, and of course Anne you can
count on us to improve the docs, so that sysadmins loose their fears
and feeling of this being "too greeny to production" and surprise
themselves like we do everyday after 5 months later running all of our
applications and our productive infrastructure over Openstack ( +1000
phy +6000 instances )
Sorry for the long writing . My two cents!
Regards
Leandro Reox
Sr. Infrastructure Engineer at mercadolibre.com <http://mercadolibre.com>
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 10:37 PM, Lloyd Dewolf <lloydost...@gmail.com
<mailto:lloydost...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Stefano Maffulli
<stef...@openstack.org <mailto:stef...@openstack.org>> wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-11-29 at 10:10 -0800, Lloyd Dewolf wrote:
>> Where do I find this previous discussion?
>
> around here:
> https://lists.launchpad.net/openstack/msg02169.html
>
> What do you think of the requirements we're gathering for the Q&A
> system? I'd like your opinion on that as we move on.
Thanks Stefano. I really like everyone reframing the discussion to
figure out what our needs are as opposed to ... shiny!
I do think stackexchange (SE) is miles [1] ahead and the only system
that will meet the majority of our requirements.
If we can get our own Area51 then it's by far the best immediate
solution.
I spoke to a friend at Area51, and he suggested we might have
different results if we tried again. So I feel like this is on the
table if we want to pursue.
Of course, having very active SE participants (high reputation) put
the proposal forward and committing to it carries a lot of weight.
My reputation [2] is weak today, but I'm sure myself and others could
ramp up the levels quickly over the next few months.
Cheers,
Lloyd
--
1. See I'm getting used to United States customary units,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units
2. http://stackexchange.com/users/25765?tab=accounts
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